Treatment of substituted arylbromides with tert-butyllithium in
diethyl ether at -78˚C, followed by the addition to dichlorodiethoxysilane,
leads to the quantitative formation of diaryldiethoxysilanes.
Diaryldiethoxysilanes can be reduced to the corresponding diarylsilanes by
stirring with lithium aluminum hydride in diethyl ether. This method avoids the
handling of gaseous and explosive dichlorosilane.